X Unveils Aurora: Elon Musk's New AI Image Generator Challenges Industry Giants

Elon Musk's new super-realistic AI image generator has been leaked: Say hello to Aurora - Softonic

Elon Musk's AI is called xAI and has products like Grok, known as the AI of X. But it also has the mysterious Aurora This weekend has been very busy in the world of artificial intelligence, although to be fair, every day since 2022 AI has been making headlines, news, and reports. And today's is a powerful one, as Elon Musk is reportedly working on a super powerful and secret AI image generator. Grok, the AI of X, had a new image generator, at least for a few hours this weekend, when some X users stumbled upon Aurora, a photorealistic image generator apparently developed to operate within the social network. Luckily for those who discovered it, Aurora offered fun to users for a while... before disappearing as quickly as it arrived, which makes us suspect it was either an error by X or a good marketing campaign. The brief appearance of Aurora represented a significant improvement compared to the current Flux AI image creator. One thing they have in common is that, judging by what has been shared online, they do not take copyright and trademark rules too seriously. It is still unclear if the lawyers have asked users to remove the images of Mario they post, as happened with Flux. That said, even the most impressive images featured the usual peculiarities, subtle or not, of AI creation, such as strangely long or short limbs and poreless faces. The only thing it apparently wouldn't show is nudity. Musk's response to the unexpected and temporary launch of Aurora? A message downplaying it: "It's just the beta version, but it will improve very quickly," he posted in response to a fan's praise of the model. That comment suggests that the development of Aurora is far from over, and that this small test was probably an unpolished preview of what is to come. For a model that is not ready for full release, it is still quite obvious that X wants Aurora to compete with DALL-E and other AI image models. The goal is likely to keep X users willing to pay for premium services like Grok with the help of high-quality AI images. Aurora would fit perfectly with other moves made by Musk for X to expand access to Grok with a new free tier offering limited access to the AI chatbot. We will see when this new tool, as interesting as it is dangerous, officially arrives.

Elon Musk's X Rolls Out 'Photorealistic' AI Image Generator to All Users

Elon Musk's X has officially rolled out its latest AI image generator model Aurora after it was released and then disappeared last weekend. Found on X's AI chatbot Grok, Aurora is a photorealistic image generator trained on billions of pictures taken from the internet built internally. It is free and available now to all users. "We've enhanced Grok's image generation abilities with a new model, code-named Aurora," writes the social media platform formerly known as Twitter on its blog. "Aurora is an autoregressive mixture-of-experts network trained to predict the next token from interleaved text and image data. "We trained the model on billions of examples from the internet, giving it a deep understanding of the world. "As a result, it excels at photorealistic rendering and precisely following text instructions. Beyond text, the model also has native support for multimodal input, allowing it to take inspiration from or directly edit user-provided images." Grok's previous AI image generator was powered by the German startup Flux and hit the headlines for taking a lax approach to copyright and images of politicians and real people. Aurora also has similarly slack rules. In PetaPixel's brief tests, Grok accepted a request for "Joe Biden ballet dancing with Vladimir Putin"; a prompt for an image of "Xi Jinping and Boris Johnson on a date at an amusement park"; and "Donald Trump smoking a cigarette". Aurora, like most AI image generators, struggles with hands, and details, and has a general uncanny feel to all of the pictures it produces. But it is an impressive tool with some folks getting photorealistic images out of it. Head to X.com (twitter.com still works too) and click on Grok in the sidebar. Check that you are on Grok 2 and then type in a prompt. For example, "Create an image of a photographer underwater." Once the AI picture appears, you can make changes to the image. For example, "A photographer holding a vintage camera in space." You can then save your share your image.

Grok accidentally releases a new AI image maker for a little while

Grok had a new image generator, at least for a few hours this weekend when some X users stumbled upon Aurora, a photorealistic image generator apparently inadvertently released for the social media platform. Aurora offered some fun for users for a little while before it vanished as quickly as it arrived. Aurora's brief appearance marked a significant upgrade from the current Flux AI image creator. One thing they have in common is a somewhat laid-back approach to copyright and trademark rules, judging from what was shared online. Whether any lawyers have told people to take down AI images they post of Mario, as happened with Flux, isn't clear as of yet. That said, even the most impressive images had the usual quirks, subtle or otherwise, of AI creation, including weirdly long or short limbs and poreless faces. The only thing it apparently wouldn't show is nudity. Musk's response to Aurora's sudden spotlight? A casual acknowledgment on X. "Just the beta version, but it will improve very fast," he posted in reply to a fan's praise of the model. That comment suggests Aurora's development is far from over, and this little test run was likely an unpolished preview of what's to come. For a model that's not ready for full release, it's still pretty obvious that X wants Aurora to compete with DALL-E and other AI image models. The goal is likely to keep X users willing to pay for premium services like Grok with the aid of high-quality AI images. Aurora would tie in nicely with other moves made by Musk for X to expand access to Grok with a new free tier offering limited access to the AI chatbot. While the sudden retraction of Aurora implies there are some issues that the developers are ironing out, the overall goal is still to compete in every facet of AI tools. It also fits with the expanding presence of Grok in other areas, such as an expected mobile app launch in the near future.

xAI Unveils Aurora Image Generator for Grok AI After Weekend Teaser

xAI says the model is trained on "billions of examples from the internet" xAI officially launched Aurora, a native artificial intelligence (AI) image generation model, on Monday after deploying it briefly over the weekend. On December 7, several users reported spotting Aurora in the model selector menu within the Grok interface and were able to generate images using the tool. However, it disappeared a few hours later and no explanation behind either the addition of the tool or its removal was given by the company. Now, three days later, the Elon Musk-owned AI firm has officially launched the AI tool. In a blog post, xAI detailed the company's first image generation model. It is currently available within Grok interface on the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform in select countries. While the AI firm did not mention the countries the tool will be rolling out first, it added that a global rollout is planned within a week. Gadgets 360 staff members were not able to access Aurora in Grok's model selector. Aurora is the code name of Grok's first native image generation model. Notably, currently image generation on Grok is supported by Flux, an AI model developed by Black Forest Labs. Aurora is an autoregressive mixture-of-experts (MoE) network, which the company claims has been trained on "billions of examples from the internet". xAI says the model displays high proficiency in generating photorealistic images and adhering to the prompt. The AI image generator can create text, logos, objects, as well as realistic portraits of humans using both text prompts and image inputs. Additionally, Aurora can also edit uploaded images. While there are no tools to specify the range, intensity, or type of edits, users can add text prompts to describe what they want changed in an image. In an example shared by the company, Aurora could add a hat to an animated image of an elephant. This capability will be added to Grok in the future. Currently, the safety parameters and privacy markers of the AI models are not known. However, based on the images shared by users during its brief access, Aurora is not barred from generating realistic images of public figures or copyrighted characters.

Elon Musk's X gains a new image generator, Aurora | TechCrunch

X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant. Just like the first image generator X added to Grok in October, this one, called Aurora, appears to have few restrictions. Accessible through the Grok tab on X's mobile apps and the web, Aurora can generate images of public and copyrighted figures, like Mickey Mouse, without complaint. The model stopped short of nudes in our brief tests, but graphic content, like "an image of a bloodied Donald Trump," wasn't off limits. Aurora's origins are a bit murky. Staffers at xAI, Musk's AI startup, which develops Grok and many of X's AI-powered features, announced Aurora in posts on X early Saturday. But the posts didn't reveal whether xAI trained Aurora itself, built on top of an existing image generator, or, as was the case with xAI's first image generator, Flux, collaborated with a third party. In any case, Aurora seems to excel at photorealistic images, including images of landscapes and still lifes. But it's not flawless. X users posted Aurora-generated images showing objects blending unnaturally together and people without fingers. (Hands are notoriously hard for image generators.) The release of Aurora comes after X made Grok free for all users; previously, the chatbot was gated behind X's $8-per-month Premium subscription. Free users can send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours and generate up to 3 images per day. In other X and xAI news this week, xAI closed a $6 billion funding round, is reportedly working on a standalone app for Grok, and may be on cusp of releasing its next-generation Grok model, Grok 3.

New AI Image Generator Said to Be Added to Grok, but Only for a Few Hours

However, hours after launch, the AI tool disappears for many users Elon Musk-owned artificial intelligence (AI) firm xAI reportedly added a new AI image generator to Grok on Saturday. This image generation model, dubbed Aurora, was confirmed by Musk to be internally developed, unlike Flux which was developed by Black Forest Labs. After spotting the tool in Grok, several users posted images that were said to be generated using Aurora. However, just a few hours later, many users reported that the tool disappeared for them. It is speculated that the AI model was taken down due to loose guardrails in generating images of public figures. According to a TechCrunch report, a new image generation model was spotted in the Grok interface within the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform. On the model selector option location at the top of the page, users could reportedly choose the "Grok 2 + Aurora" option to access the image generation capabilities of the new model. But interestingly, xAI did not make any official announcement about the launch of the tool. However, Musk indirectly confirmed the AI model while replying to a post on X that shared several images generated using Aurora. He said, "This is our internal image generation system. Still in beta, but it will improve fast." Separately, Chris Park, Director and Co-Head, X Developer Platform at X, congratulated xAI in a post for "releasing a brand new image gen model -- Aurora". Several users also posted images generated using the AI tool. The model appears to be generating images of public figures like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and copyrighted characters such as Mickey Mouse and Luigi. In one instance, TechCrunch was also able to generate an image of US President Donald Trump with a bleeding face. Due to the lack of an official announcement, no details are available about Aurora's model architecture, framework, data training approach, or the source of the data used to train the model. It is also not known whether the model was entirely built in-house or it was built in collaboration with a third-party AI firm. Adding to the mystery, several users reported the disappearance of the AI model just a few hours after its release. Some speculated that Aurora was accidentally launched due to a testing glitch, while others claimed it was due to the lack of guardrails in generating images. While nothing can be said conclusively due to the lack of an official statement, Gadgets 360 staff members did not find the option to use Aurora at the time of writing.

X launches Aurora: New AI image generator faces challenges

X, the social network owned by Elon Musk, has launched a new AI image generation tool named Aurora. This feature, accessible via the Grok AI tab in the app, allows users to create realistic images from textual prompts, raising questions about its training data and ethical guidelines. The rollout began on December 7, 2024, but Aurora has faced some issues, disappearing for certain users shortly after its release. Currently, Aurora operates with minimal restrictions compared to other mainstream AI image generators. Users can create images of both public and copyrighted figures, such as Mickey Mouse, without facing immediate consequences. However, it refrains from generating nude images. In tests, the model allowed for graphic imagery, drawing attention to its lack of guardrails in content moderation. The introduction of Aurora follows previous iterations of image generation features within the Grok framework. Initially launched in October, the previous version was similar but less advanced. Since launching, users have highlighted Aurora's ability to produce photorealistic images, including landscapes and still life, even demonstrating uncanny compositions where subjects merge unnaturally. According to employee statements from xAI, the team behind Grok, it is still unclear whether Aurora was independently developed or built upon existing technologies. Some staff indicated they contributed to fine-tuning the system, suggesting an internal development process. Elon Musk had previously mentioned that xAI was working on a proprietary image generation system, hinting that Aurora may be their latest effort. The Aurora image generator can be accessed across both mobile and web platforms, allowing free users to generate up to three images per day after the Grok feature was made available without subscription fees. Users can send up to ten messages to Grok every two hours, making it a more accessible AI tool for the platform's growing user base. Prior to this, Grok was part of a premium service costing $8 per month. Future developments for Aurora and its underlying technology remain under scrutiny as xAI recently secured $6 billion in funding to further its AI initiatives. Alongside these expansions, xAI is reportedly working on a standalone app for Grok and a next-generation iteration of its chatbot, Grok 3. Since its launch, Aurora has faced mixed reviews from users. Image generation has been praised for its photorealistic capabilities; however, challenges persist, particularly with complex objects. Users have reported oddities like poorly rendered hands, showcasing the well-known difficulties image generators encounter with rendering limbs accurately. Moreover, the premature disappearance of the image generator for some users has sparked discussions about its reliability. Observations from various xAI staff suggest ongoing enhancements may be necessary to resolve these issues.

X says its new image generator, Aurora, will launch for all users within the week | TechCrunch

X, the Elon Musk-owned social network previously known as Twitter, quietly added a new image generator to its Grok assistant this past Saturday. Then, it removed it. Now, it's bringing it back -- and officially announcing it. The image generator, called Aurora, was developed by Musk's AI company, xAI, and trained on billions of examples from the internet. In a blog post, xAI said that Aurora "excels at photorealistic rendering" and following text instructions, and can "take inspiration from or directly edit user-provided images." Aurora is now available on X through Grok in select countries and will roll out to all users within a week, xAI said. Support for editing existing images will come at a later date. "Grok can now generate high-quality images across several domains where other image generation models often struggle," xAI wrote. "It can render precise visual details of real-world entities, text, logos, and can create realistic portraits of humans." When TechCrunch tested Aurora last weekend, it appeared to have few restrictions, just like the first image generator X added to Grok in October. Accessible through the Grok tab on X's mobile apps and the web, Aurora could generate images of public and copyrighted figures, like Mickey Mouse, without complaint. The model stopped short of nudes in our brief tests. But graphic content, like "an image of a bloodied [Donald] Trump," wasn't off limits. Aurora also wasn't flawless, however. On Saturday, X users posted Aurora-generated images showing objects blending unnaturally together and people without fingers. (Hands are notoriously hard for image generators.)

xAI launches and then pulls Aurora image generator in Grok -- here's what happened

Grok, the artificial intelligence assistant built into social media platform X, got its own image generation model over the weekend -- but in a few hours, it was gone. Named Aurora, the new model seemed to be particularly impressive at generating realistic-looking images of people and animals. The output seems almost indistinguishable from real photos and is on par with Recraft and Mystic. The problem is that the new model was gone within a few hours. It arrived as a drop-down menu in Grok with no fanfare or notice, then disappeared just as fast. It also came the same weekend Grok was made free for most users on X. Elon Musk described it as "our internal image generation system. Still in beta, but it will improve fast." It isn't clear if it was built from scratch or, like Mystic, built on top of the Flux model but heavily adapted and fine-tuned. Soon after Aurora disappeared, it was replaced with a new drop-down menu for Grok that says Grok + Flux. This takes it back to the pre-Aurora version and uses the Black Forest Labs Flux 1.1 Pro model to create images. What makes image generation in Grok particularly fun is its ability to know more about you and see trends based on X posts or through web search access. There was a trend of people asking Grok to draw them in different situations, and it was much more accurate than similar trends using ChatGPT and DALL-E. Aurora seems to be able to generate perfect depictions of real people including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Donald Trump. This may be one reason it was removed, giving developers time to put safeguards in place. However, even using Flux Grok is pretty laid back in terms of its restrictions. It can produce images of famous people and characters -- including in inappropriate situations. It seems that Aurora was just released a little too early, or dropped as a teaser and that it will be coming back, possibly better than it already is. If this is the case, it will be a prime candidate for our Best AI Image Generator list.

X Launches and Pauses Aurora, Its AI Image Generator

Microblogging platform X released, and then pulled back, its new AI image generation tool Aurora on December 7, 2024. X employee Chris Park confirmed the launch of the model on the platform while replying to a post by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Some users ran tests of their own and in the process discovered results the image generator was likely to come up with, including a bloodied image of US President-elect Donald Trump, as reported by TechCrunch. Many others touted the photorealistic nature of the images it produced. The tool was accessible through the Grok tab on the X mobile app as well as on the web, and appeared to users in the model selection menu as "Grok 2+Aurora (Beta)." Later on, however, many said that they were unable to access Aurora. At the time of writing this article, the only option visible in the drop-down menu was "Grok 2+Flux (Beta)", the older model. The images, even though a step ahead of the older model, reportedly encountered problems such as "objects blending unnaturally together" and images of human beings without fingers, a seemingly common problem among the generated images. Eventually, Elon Musk replied to a post about the new model, confirming that it was a Beta release (a pre-release version for testing purposes). "This is our internal image generation system. Still in beta, but it will improve fast," he said. This comes a few days after X made Grok 2 free to use, albeit with limitations for non-paying users. Previously, Grok required an $8/month subscription. Users on the free version will be able to send up to 10 messages every two hours to the chatbot and generate up to three images per day. Notably, Grok previous image generator has been called out in the past for lacking certain restrictions around the types of content it can produce, like offensive images of politicians and celebrities. Aurora seems pretty much in line with that trend.

Grok Aurora image generator is live -- here's how to use it

Another week, another artificial intelligence model, but this one is a little different as it is an AI image model built by the team behind Grok, the X-based chatbot (which is now free). Whatever you think of X, it's clear the platform is shifting from a social media site to offering additional AI features -- likely in competition with Meta's own AI suite including MetaAI and the Imagine image generator. By tying these features to social media platforms, there's an argument that each new shift brings a whole influx of users for testing -- and additional data for training the next generation of the model. That's likely to be the case with the new Grok Image Generation release, code-named Aurora. It appeared briefly over the weekend but now seems to have replaced Flux as the image generator inside Grok completely. Writing on the xAI blog, the team explains "We've enhanced Grok's image generation abilities with a new model, code-named Aurora." "Aurora is an autoregressive mixture-of-experts network trained to predict the next token from interleaved text and image data. We trained the model on billions of examples from the internet, giving it a deep understanding of the world." This basically means it is particularly good at photorealistic images and following a prompt. It can also generate impressive text on the image and take inspiration from an image uploaded by a user. It's perhaps unsurprising that one image generation test is the "Pepe the frog meme" who has become something of an alt-right icon, but Aurora can also edit -- turning a real cat into an anime version, for example. At present, Grok's latest model is available on X in "select countries", but is rolling out to all users "within a week". If you see Grok + Flux in the model selection drop-down then you don't have access yet. If you do, then this is a guide to using it. This guide assumes you have an X Premium subscription, which is required for using Aurora.

X gives Grok a new photorealistic AI image generator

X has given Grok a new AI image generator model called "Aurora" that seems to create far more photorealistic imagery than Grok's other image generator, with similarly few apparent restrictions on what it will produce, TechCrunch reports. Like Grok, anyone can use Aurora. It lives in a new "Grok 2 + Aurora beta" option in the Grok model selector, though you'll only get a few queries before you hit the X Premium subscription paywall and have to wait.

All X users can access Grok AI chatbot and its new image generator now - for free

Grok gears up to become a more serious competitor in the AI space. Since acquiring X, Elon Musk has been juicing up the platform with artificial intelligence (AI) using its Grok assistant offering. Over the past week, the platform gained a new AI image generator and expanded access to its AI chatbot. The Grok AI chatbot on X has been limited to Premium users. However, as first spotted by The Verge, starting on Friday, free users began noticing that they had also been given access to the Grok 2 chatbot, with the ability to send up to 10 Grok messages every two hours. Also: OpenAI's Sora AI video generator is here - how to try it At the time of writing this article, from my free X account, I could access the chatbot, which has a similar UI to ChatGPT. When I asked, "What is the biggest news of the day?", I was met with a reliable answer that made sense and was linked to the posts and web pages from which it retrieved its answer. On Saturday, Grok also debuted a new image generator, dubbed Aurora, which produced extremely photorealistic results, as seen by user generations shared to X. Like the generations made by Black Forest's Flux.1 on X, there seemed to be little safeguards to what could be generated on the platform. Also: OpenAI's AI transcription tool hallucinates excessively - here's a better alternative TechCrunch had the chance to play with the model, and although nudes were blocked, copyrighted and graphic material was not, with the model generating an "image of a bloodied [Donald] Trump". After a few hours of being live, the generator was taken down from Grok. However, the model isn't gone altogether. On Monday, xAI announced in a release that it has enhanced Grok's image generation abilities with a new model, Aurora, trained on billions of examples from the internet to excel at photorealistic renditions and prompt fidelity. "Aurora is an autoregressive mixture-of-experts network trained to predict the next token from interleaved text and image data," said the release. The new Aurora model will also be able to take images as inputs. However, xAI shares this ability will be rolled out to users on X "soon", with no definitive date. It seems as if the safeguards on this new model will remain loose, with the sample generations in the release including "Jackie Chan in Donald Trump's hairstyle" and "Elon Musk as a Ghibli character." Also: OpenAI's o1 lies more than any major AI model. Why that matters The company shares that Grok's new capabilities will roll out to all users within a week. When visiting Grok 2 from my free account, it still reads, "Images are generated with FLUX.1 by Black Forest Labs," which I attribute to the updated version not rolling out to me yet.